Did Steve McQueen get ripped off trading a Jackson Pollock painting for a motorcycle? His granddaughter claims that he did, and is suing for ownership of the $68 million painting, alleging that the late actor never received the vehicle and Los Angeles property he was promised in the deal.
According to Molly McQueen’s lawsuit, the trade was supposed to swap the Pollock canvas for a home on Latigo Canyon and a motorcycle owned by Rudolph and Pamela Borchert. McQueen delivered the painting, but then “one of the Borcherts crashed the motorcycle and the property never changed title.”
Molly McQueen is suing Brent Borchert, a lawyer, for the work’s return, insisting that she is “entitled to immediate possession of the painting.” When the deal fell through, McQueen did try to get the work back, making a “demand for the return of the Pollock painting within a reasonable time,” the lawsuit noted. Nevertheless, it has stayed with the Borchert family for decades.
For Brent Borchert, born after the painting changed hands, the Pollock painting was a fixture in the family home, one of a number of paintings hanging on the living room wall throughout his childhood. He and his sister, Bettina, inherited the piece from their parents, but never really got the full story about how it was acquired. But as crazy as Molly McQueen’s story sounds, Borchert has admitted there might be something to it.
“I talked to my mom once and asked, ‘What’s the deal with the Jackson Pollock painting?’ And she said, ‘Your father made some sort of deal. I wasn’t there for it.’ It was a quick conversation, but I recall that she may have mentioned something about a motorcycle and the house,” Borchert told the Mirror. “It’s all very hazy.”
He did, however, have memories of his parents hanging out with McQueen, who was a known motorcycle lover.
Rudolph Borchert was also a motorcycle enthusiast, and the couple even had a bad accident on one of his bikes. Borchert said it was “a cool motorcycle that was kind of hard to get your hands on.” The crash sent his dad to the emergency room, and put an end to his motorcycling hobby.
But did it also scuttle an art deal?
Borchert said he is willing to hear Molly McQueen out: “If they’re willing to be reasonable, and then they can show me something that makes me believe something went on that wasn’t right, I’ll come to an agreement. But if they can’t, then I won’t.”
Pollock, of course, is one of art history’s best-known painters, famous for his contributions to the Abstract Expressionism movement and his signature splatter technique. The artist’s record at auction is $61.1 million, set at Sotheby’s New York in 2021, according to the Artnet Price Database. Those kinds of prices can certainly lead to litigation. A Pollock that sold on a $15.3 million guarantee in November at Phillips New York sparked a lawsuit in July, after billionaire buyer David Mimran failed to pay for the work.
Sarah Cascone is a senior writer at Artnet News
